


And I'm Getting to Do it With You

by scribbledmargins



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Coming Out, Emotional Constipation, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 16:36:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11085603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribbledmargins/pseuds/scribbledmargins
Summary: The hockey world is shocked to find out during a game hit that Jamie and Tyler have soul bonded. But no one is as shocked as Jamie and Tyler.





	And I'm Getting to Do it With You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_milky_way](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_milky_way/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy, I had fun writing this!

 

October, 2017

 

The thing is, in most ways, this entire situation is actually Jordie's fault.

"Yeah, you're fucking welcome." Jordie says, when Jamie shares this theory over the phone from the empty training room where he's hunkered down hiding from the press and waiting for someone from the front office to come find him.

"I'm serious! This would never have happened if I hadn't gone off blockers when you went to Montreal. Or if we'd never been on the same team and needed blockers in the first place!"

He can practically hear Jordie rolling his eyes, which, fair enough.

"Yeah, ok Jamie. It's all my fault that neither you _nor_ Tyler noticed you'd bonded until he took a hit to the knee and you _< i>both</i>_ went down."

"Sorry. I just–"

"I know."

It's quiet for a moment, both of them just breathing together across the distance.

Then,

"You _really_ didn't _know?_ Not even a little bit?"

"No! It sounds crazy to me too, but I swear I didn't."

"I believe you, ok? I do. It's just..."

Jamie sighs and scrubs his hand over his face. "Yeah."

The aching in his knee stops abruptly. They must've used a pain blocker injection, probably not enough for Tyler to stop feeling it completely, but enough to cut the phantom pain echoing in Jamie.

"You got a plan?"

There's a loose string on the edge of his shorts. He pulls at it absently and tries to come up with an answer.

"Not sure. They told me not to speak to the press, and wait for someone to come get me for a meeting. So. I'm waiting. They had to finish patching Segs up first, I think."

Jordie must hear something in his voice because he gets really sincere all of a sudden.

"Hey. You know it's going to be fine, right? They might be a little pissed but they won't like. Trade you for this. They can't, remember? It's in the CBA. Besides they wouldn't trade either one of you for this anyway, they aren't that stupid."

Jamie knows, logically, that Jordie's right. That was a big deal during the last lockout, the inclusion of language that made it against the rules for a team to trade players that bonded romantically with a teammate, especially since there was no public record of what led to those demands, or which players made them. Just a closed door negotiation, an announcement after the lockout ended, and a swirling eddy of rumors.

The door swings open and an intern from the front office that Jamie's seen a couple times, but never officially met, leans against the doorway.

"Yeah. Listen, I gotta go, I'll talk to you later."

"Ok. Good luck, bro."

"Thanks."

He hangs up the phone and looks at the intern. Tries to smile. "They ready for me?"

She nods and sort of smiles back, although it looks more like a grimace. "I'm supposed to bring you to conference room C, everyone's waiting in there."

He climbs to his feet slowly. "Ok. Is, uh, is Seggy...?"

She smiles for real this time and says "Yeah, I passed him in the hall, he should be there already. And someone said it was just a deep bruise, not a new tear, I think?"

It's a small relief, but a relief nonetheless.

  
When they get to the door of the conference room they both stop.

"Um." Says Jamie.

"I think you have to go in." Says the intern.

"Probably should." Says Jamie.

The intern pats him on the arm in what's clearly meant to be a comforting gesture, and then she scampers. Jamie briefly considers following her example, but.

  
But Tyler's in there and Jamie's not an asshole. He takes a deep breath and opens the door.

  
Hitchcock is there, and so is Jim Nill, a couple front office faces he recognizes, and Greg, the trainer who specializes in bonds. They're all clustered on one side of the wide table and on the other, with his leg propped on a spare chair, and looking right at Jamie, is Tyler.

When their eyes meet, Tyler smiles a tiny half smile and shrugs one shoulder.

Jamie still has no idea how they could've bonded without meaning to, without trying, but he's less confused about how he didn't notice, because there's nothing new about the way he feels when Tyler looks at him. Solid and warm, it lights him up from the inside out and has since the moment they met. In most ways, he should've seen this coming.

Jamie crosses the room and sinks into the empty chair next to Tyler and gives in to the urge to touch his bandaged knee.

"How's the knee?" He murmurs.

Tyler quirks an eyebrow at him and whispers back, "you tell me."

Jamie feels a faint rush of amusement under the feedback loop of nerves, and it hits him suddenly, that this isn't just an abstract thing happening to them, they're _bonded_ , for real, a fucking romance bond, which means....which means Tyler loves him back, really loves him; serious, forever kind of love and that's–that's a lot to deal with in a brightly lit conference room, in front of his coach and the team owner.

Tyler is looking at him still, his eyes huge and pupils blown wide, like he's having his very own revelation.

Someone clears their throat and the they both jump.

"Boys."

It's Hitchcock, using the same time of voice he uses when they're down at the end of the second. So that's. Not ideal.

Jamie takes his hand off Tyler's knee and turns his focus to rest of the room.

Nill, Hitchcock, and Jones from management are all sitting with glasses of water in front of them looking very much like they wish it were something stronger. Greg has a legal pad full of notes and diagrams. Miranda Kerr is the first person besides Tyler to make eye contact with him, when she looks up from whatever she's been doing with her tablet, and visibly braces herself to speak.

Jamie doesn't know Miranda all that well. She's with PR, but she's not one of the people who comes by every so often to do videos or suggest things for them to get involved with in the city. She's crisis management and the last time Jamie had to deal with her on a personal level instead of as a captain, she was giving him a phone lecture about Twitter and alienating female fans and how his opinions on some things should remain private, and struggling to contain her own laughter.

She's definitely not laughing now.

"Well," she begins, "I've seen a lot of things in my career, but I must admit this is a first."

Jamie squirms in his seat, guilt gnawing away at his insides. Some of the guilt is probably Tyler's but it barely matters, not when they're both feeling it so strongly.

Miranda pushes adjusts her glasses and sighs.

"Let me be clear. This meeting is about moving forward and coming up with a strategy we can all agree on so that everyone is finally on the same page. That being said, I do hope that you understand what sort of position you've put yourselves and all of us in, and that a lot of what we have to do to move forward could've been avoided if you'd just spoken to us first."

Jamie cuts his eyes to the left and sees Tyler already staring at him, equally startled. Before either of them get a word in edgewise, Nill breaks his silence.

"You should've trusted us with this, or at least known that you couldn't hide it for long. I mean, what did you think was going to happen? You'd just never get hurt? No one would notice? Jamie, you've been on blocker suppressants for years you know how this works, I would've expected better from you, I know this isn't what you wanted attention for this season—"

"We didn't know." Tyler cuts him off.

Nill goes silent. Jones freezes with his glass halfway to his lips. Greg looks shocked.

"Excuse me?"

"We didn't know." Tyler repeats himself. "Did we, Jamie?"

Jamie shakes his head. "Nope. We found out seven minutes into the third, just like you."

"We haven't even had a chance to talk to each other since."

Jones recovers first.

"How in the fuck...?"

They shrug at him, and he slumps back into his chair.

"It's a Romantic Bond though." He says to the ceiling. "Feeling each other's physical pain, that's Rom-bond stuff, right?"

"Uh-huh." Greg confirms.

"But that can't just _happen_ , this isn't a damn chick flick, spontaneous Romantic Bonds _aren't real_. Right?"

"Right. There's not, like, a ceremony or something. But you had have triggered it somehow."

He says the last part to Jamie and Tyler.

"Ok. Ok." Says Miranda, who is pinching at the bridge of her nose under her glasses, "Ok. Is it safe to say that you two are...involved. Romantically."

They glance at each other and Jamie can feel himself flushing. Tyler is already beet red and stammering.

"In, uh, in a manner of speaking, I guess? We've, um, been—"

Hitchcock coughs again and looks like he's seriously reconsidering every decision he's made in the last six months.

"Oh my god, stop." Says Miranda, and she begins typing something very rapidly into her tablet, and then looks back up at them.

"I'm going to level with you. We can't put the car back in the bag. Everyone noticed what happened tonight, it's out there, we can't 'no comment' it into submission. But the two of you have to get your shit together. I'm emailing you both a list of potential questions and things you need to have actual answers for before we make any sort of statement. Go home. Figure out what you want to do. Come back tomorrow with a better idea. We'll work on official management statements tonight without you."

They’re dismissed with instructions to skip optional skate in the morning, and to avoid looking at the internet until they figure their shit out.

****

Once they’re alone an awkward silence descends. They have so much to talk about, but Jamie has no idea where to even start. They make it all the way to his car without saying a word and he finds himself wishing that clear emotion sharing was the first thing to come in with Romantic Bonds, instead of the fuzzy half-formed thing they have now.

 

The thing about Bonds is that there’s a lot of information about them, but no one knows why they exist or why they work the way they do, not really. There are whole fields of study devoted to it, but the hows and whys are a lot foggier. Platonic and Fraternal Bonds were the type he thought about the most, the type that were most likely to impact his daily life. Platonic Bonds between players weren’t allowed in the professional sports because in modern times they pretty much only happen to siblings or lifelong friends, and the emotional clarity could sometimes develop into something close to mind reading and it was deemed too much of an advantage, so he and Jordie had to take suppressants as long as they were on the same team. Fraternal Bonds _were_ allowed, since they were basically just heightened awareness of where teammates were positioned and only ever happened at international tournaments when everyone was playing for kin and country (“It’s fucked up that Frat Bonds only kick in for team sports and the military these days, you know that right?” Jenny had asked once, back when they were younger). 

 

But Romantic Bonds, those were different. Jamie barely even thought about them, except in vague, future terms. They hadn’t seemed relevant to his life until tonight when he found out, along with the rest of the hockey world, that he’d bonded with his best friend. 

 

As they’re pulling out of the garage, Tyler’s hand comes down on top of Jamie’s thigh and a muffled wave of contentment washes over him. He reaches down, tangles their fingers together. 

****

 

Jamie drives to Tyler’s on autopilot. The dogs need to go out, and be fed their dinner, and Tyler needs to be in the same place as all his knee braces. Jamie goes through the evening routine when they get there and Tyler settles on the couch. It occurs to him when he’s scooping high end dog food into the dishes that he didn’t have to ask, has done this same thing dozens of times, before and after they started sleeping together.

 

Once the dogs are taken care of, Jamie grabs two gatorades and goes to join Tyler on the couch. His leg is up on cushions and he’s frowning at his iPad in a way that makes Jamie suspicious. 

 

“We told Miranda we wouldn’t look at Twitter.”

Tyler reaches up and takes the gatorade without looking. “Some dude wrote, like, an essay in tweets about how we’re clearly experiencing some elevated form a Plat-bond.”

Jamie chuckles and Tyler looks up at him, grinning. 

“Right? I kinda want to respond. Tell him it’s the elevated kind where we like to suck each other’s dicks. I won’t. But, like. Know that I want to.”

Jamie sits down and takes a long sip of Gatorade. It’s his favorite, the kind Tyler hates and only has in his fridge for Jamie. 

“So. We should probably….”

“Yeah. I have Miranda’s email open, here.”

They really should just talk about what it means that they bonded even though they aren’t technically dating, but Jamie’s a coward about some things and Miranda’s email seems easier to tackle.

Tyler shifts sideways, and settles against Jamie’s side, tilting the screen so they can both see. At the top she’s copied the official NHL position on Romantic Bonds. 

 

_“Due to the physical nature of the game and the potential for extremely high levels of pain reflection, players who suspect that they will be soon be triggering a bond with their partner must notify their organization as soon as possible for their own safety and for the safety of their partner. If a bond is triggered unexpectedly, the player must relay this information as soon as he is aware of it’s existence. As of January 12, 2013 players who intend to bond with another player are required to alert their organizations of these intentions, and are guaranteed protection of their existing contracts, and the discretion of the organization. Measures will be taken to assure that such a bond does not unduly benefit or harm the team of the players in question, and as always the health and safety of our players is the top priority.”_

 

Underneath that she’s listed the process of triggering a Romantic Bond, point by point. Tyler reads the first point aloud. 

“RBs are triggered fastest in couples who were not on any sort of blocker when they met, regardless of how long or how often one or both used blockers over the course of the relationship. If blockers were present at first meeting, it can take several months of blocker free interaction to trigger an RB.” 

 

He tilts is head up at Jamie, his confusion a shadowy echo of Jamie’s. “You’ve been on blockers as long as I’ve been here, though. And we weren’t around each other nearly enough this summer for this to happen, were we?”

 

They weren’t. The summer had been too long, and they’d been apart for nearly all of it, there was no way it was enough, not after years of Plat-Bond blocker supplements on Jamie’s end. Except…Oh. Fuck. 

 

Tyler tensed up, no doubt in response to the sudden influx of icy shock that Jamie had to be sending at him through the bond. 

 

“Jamie…?”

 

“I _wasn’t_ on blockers when we met.”

 

“What? Yes you were, you got questions about the new bond shit in the CBA and you were talking about you and Jordie being on blockers already and how they were really effective for Plat-bonds so you didn’t see how Rom-bonds on a team would be any different.”

 

Jamie spares a second to be amazed that Tyler even remembers that, with all the questions he’d been getting about Boston at the same time, but then he shakes his head. 

 

“No, Segs, that’s not when we met, not really.”

 

Tyler frowns for a second and then the penny drops. “What? You really think that was enough?” 

 

Tyler sits back too fast and winces as fresh pain radiates through Jamie’s knee.

 

“Must’ve been, right?” Jamie shrugs. “We met officially, we talked some, Jordie wasn’t up full time yet so I was’t on blockers. That has to be it.” 

 

“Holy shit.” Tyler looks shocked.

 

Jamie knows how he feels. Literally. 

 

They stare at each other for a long moment as that information settles. Five and half years. Longer than they’ve even been friends, this was somewhere inside each of them, laying groundwork, building up, waiting for the chance to reach out across the space between them and grab tight. 

 

****

January, 2012

 

The longer the he goes without hearing his name called, the more nervous Jamie gets. He’s a good player, obviously or he wouldn’t be here, but he still doesn’t quite feel like he fits here, doesn’t quite feel like the players around him with their Cup wins, and gold medals, and high draft numbers are actually his peers. Maybe someday, but not yet, and it’s enough to make the incredibly low stakes All-Star Draft feel insurmountably important. 

 

He looks around the room, desperate for a distraction, and his eyes land on Tyler Seguin. Who, or some reason, hasn’t been picked yet either. Jamie doesn’t know Tyler, barely knows anything about him, just that he went second in a highly competitive draft and won The Cup as a rookie. And also that he’s unfairly attractive and charismatic. 

 

And, oh good, he’s coming over to where Jamie’s sitting. 

 

“Hey, man.”

 

“Hey.” 

 

They shoot the shit for a little bit, talking about nothing in particular, just general hockey stuff, how the season’s going, the quality of the available drinks, how fucked up it is that Tyler can’t drink legally in Boston yet. 

 

“So I saw that fight you had with Kindl a couple months back.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah. Dude, in the least gay way possible, that was totally hot.”

 

Jamie looks up, taken aback. Seguin is grinning at him, but there’s a nervousness around his eyes. Jamie isn’t in the habit of hooking up with other players, but he knows what it looks like to put out signals couched in nonchalance and humor. He lets his eyes drag up and down Tyler’s body for a long second before he raises his eyebrows and responds. 

 

“Oh really? Fighting does it for you, huh?”

 

Seguin laughs, delighted, the nerves evaporating. 

 

“Yup.”

 

Nothing happens that weekend, and the rest of their interactions are way more professional and way less flirtatious but still, whenever Tyler looks at him, something warm blooms in Jamie’s chest. 

 

*****

“Actually,” Jamie says clearing his throat and desperately trying to regain control of his own emotions, not to mention Tyler’s, “it’s not that surprising. You got drunk and told me it’s hot when I fight.”

 

Tyler turns beet red, but he’s smiling. “Not just when you fight.”

 

Jamie swallows. Hard. 

 

With no warning he goes from vaguely aroused to feeling like he’s _on fire with it,_ like he’ll combust if Tyler so much as touches him. He inhales sharply, holds his breath, and then just as suddenly it passes.

 

“Jesus Christ, what the hell was _that_?” Tyler asks. He’s panting a little bit, his pupils blown wide. “Is that what happens when we get turned on at the same time, now?” 

 

 

“Maybe? It was kind of like when you got hurt, i guess, except…”

 

“Better.”

 

“Way better.” 

 

“We should, uh, the list.”

 

 

“Right. Right. Ok.” He grabs the iPad from where it’s slipped sideways onto the couch and looks at the next point. 

 

 

It’s about sex. Of fucking course. 

 

“In the majority of cases, a sexual component must exist for a consistent and significant amount of time before an RB is triggered. For most couples triggering the bond requires sexual intercourse without blockers present, and heightened, shared pleasure and sensation during intercourse is often the first sign that a bond has triggered.” 

 

“Oh my God.” Says Tyler. “We are… _so_ stupid.”

 

The freaky surround sound lust flares back up again, and Jamie is just. He’s done. 

 

“Is it gonna mess up your knee too bad if we have sex on the couch?”

 

“I honestly could not give less of a fuck.” 

 

Tyler drops the iPad to the ground and reaches for Jamie. 

 

******

 

September, 2017

 

In the three and a half years they’ve been fucking on the regular, Jamie’s pretty sure it’s never been like this, which is insane because it’s been _good._ But this, this is on another level entirely. Tyler had barely gotten Jamies front door closed behind him before he’d been on Jamie, practically climbing him in the foyer, stumbling them back against the wall. 

 

It takes them forever to get to the bed because neither of them wants to let go, to stop kissing long enough to make it there, but when they do…. Oh, when they do it’s incredible. It feels like Tyler is _everywhere_ , under him, yes, but all around him too, inside him, in his blood and under his skin. 

 

Jamie can barely breathe with how badly he wants him, can’t even care that how much he feels must be written all over his face, that all Tyler has to do is look at his face to know how much Jamie loves him. It barely matters though, not when Tyler is holding Jamie so close he can barely pull out enough to work up a rhythm, has to make due with rocking into him shallow, uneven, thrusts. No way can Tyler even see his face. 

 

“Jamie, fuck, _Jamie_. I missed you, Jesus I missed you.”

 

“Yeah.” He pants back. “Me to, God, I’m so glad you’re home.” 

 

Tyler fucking whines at that, arches up and presses them even tighter together. Jamie’s vaguely aware that the position they're in _should not be working,_ but it is, it really, really is, so he can’t muster the energy to care about how. He twists his head to the side, kissing any skin he can reach. 

 

“Shit, shit, how are you doing this, how does it feel _this_ good? You’re fucking, you’re everywhere, I feel you everywhere, it feels like I’m…oh fuck I’m gonna come, I’m gonna…”

 

He comes then, untouched, dragging Jamie with him and it’s ridiculous how good it feels, how long it takes for both of them to resurface, to stop shaking, to remember how to breathe. 

 

They fall asleep like that, wrapped up in each other entirely, and the last thing Jamie thinks about before he drifts off is that this is probably not a fuck buddy thing anymore, probably hasn’t been for a while, if it ever was at all. 

 

****

Later, while Tyler is still laying on top of him and tracing shapes that might be his own initials onto Jamie’s shoulder, before they get entirely overwhelmed by exhaustion, Jamie reaches down and grasps blindly until he gets his hand on Tyler’s iPad. It’s locked, but he knows the code. 

 

There’s only one thing left on the list. Well. Only one thing that really matters. He holds it where they can both read the words.

 

_Romantic Bonds are dependent upon a strong foundation of trust, commitment, and love. Without these, the bond will not trigger. Verbal recognition of the above may speed the process, but are not necessary for the bond to take._

 

Tyler props his chin on Jamie’s chest, and smiles. And just like that it’s easy to find the words. 

 

“Hey, so I’ve been meaning to tell you something.”

Tyler laughs. 

 

“Oh yeah? I’ve been meaning to tell you something too. I’m like, stupid in love you and have been for years, that cool?”

 

Jamie leans up, stops short of a kiss and murmurs, “I’m stupid in love with you too, and have been so long that I didn’t even notice we’d bonded. So yeah, I’m cool with it.”

 

 

******

They email Miranda some vague answers that she can work her magic on. Eventually. 

 

 

_End_


End file.
